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Tile customers love these Bluetooth trackers – until they die after a year

The Bluetooth tracker can find lost keys and other stuff, and consumers love it for that. But they've turned to Amazon with 1-star reviews, venting that the product only lasts for 12 months. A change could be coming.

Tile customers love these Bluetooth trackers – until they die after a year

The popular, tiny device that helps you find your lost keys might have a big problem.
USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES – Francis Tapon bought a Tile Bluetooth tracker on Amazon and enjoyed how it helped him find lost keys. That is, until the battery died 12 months later.

"This Bluetooth device is nearly perfect, but it has one fatal flaw," the travel author wrote on Amazon in posting his initial 1-star review, later upgraded to 2-stars. "It lacks a user-replaceable battery."

Tapon isn't alone. While many consumers love their Tiles – the company has sold 15 million in the last six years – others have taken to Amazon to vent. The Tile Mate, the entry-level tracker that starts at $19.99, has 8,788 reviews on Amazon, and 1,060 of them, or 12 percent, are 1 star.

The problem is their lithium batteries. The devices, which range in size from 1.3-inch by 1.3-inch to a little smaller than a credit card, have a built-in internal battery that can't be replaced or recharged. Tile promises customers 12 months of battery life, but some complain that this salient information is buried in the advertising materials and are disappointed when they discover it's not built to last.

The San Mateo, California-based company is using a proven business strategy for consumer electronics firms by selling a product that will eventually stop working, says Stephen Lu, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California. "They hook you in at the beginning, then push you to get something new," he says.

Lu cites the iPhone as a prime example: It slows down with age to the point where consumers feel the need to refresh with a newer model. Apple doesn't admit to this but last year said it intentionally slowed down older iPhones to avoid crashes as batteries declined.

Tile says the short shelf life is a necessary trade-off to convenience. It can guarantee a working device for 12 months, and customers don't need to fuss with changing a tiny battery.

"Adding a battery door would add to the complexity of the product," says Mike Farley, Tile's co-founder and CEO.

Tile's box for the Mate product does let consumers know they will only get a year of usage, but it's in fine print, on the bottom of the box. On the website, this information is not on the front page but in a FAQs section of the Tile website.

The startup could be more upfront that customers are buying a product that will expire, Lu says.

“It’s not customer satisfaction, it's expectations. If you tell them in advance, they won’t be disappointed,” he said.

The thinnest Tile, the $30 Slim, is the width of two credit cards, according to the company, and can easily slip into a wallet or briefcase or be pasted onto a laptop. The original Tile, the Mate, is slightly larger and is meant to be clipped onto something – keys, an umbrella, a zipper of a backpack. It also sells the $25 waterproof Sport and Style, which both tout greater Bluetooth range, up to 200 feet.

The company, backed by Khosla Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, has sold 5 million of the gadgets this year and is on track to bring in $100 million of revenue for 2018.

It does it by solving an age-old problem: finding lost stuff.

You attach the gadget to one of your possessions, connect the smartphone app and ring the Bluetooth tracker when you can't find something. An audible sound comes from the item, and you can view its whereabouts on the app. However, the app needs to be running at all times for it to monitor Tile, which means another battery – the smartphone – also needs juice.

"I'm devoted to those things," says Susan Stripling Mautner, a Brooklyn, New York-based photographer. She owns 12 Tiles, which she uses to put on all her camera bags and memory card wallets.

"Initially I thought it would be a novelty, but then I got hooked," she said. She would happily pay more money to have units that were longer lasting.

Other customers' dissatisfaction with the short lifespan has given an opening to competitors who tout Bluetooth tracking devices that don't need to get replaced every year.

Tile's main competition is TrackR. This Santa Barbara, California-based company has backing from Amazon's Alexa Fund, which invests in startups. A skill for the connected speaker to use your voice to help find things is one of the many Alexa skills.

TrackR, which makes two products, the $24.99 circular coin-size Pixel and the slightly larger $29.99 Bravo, competes with Tile by offering the ability to remove and update the CR1620 battery. But the Toms' Guide tech review site calls the installation process "a challenge" and "nothing easy."

Compared to TrackR's 31- and 41-percent 1-star reviews on Amazon, Tile's 1-star reviews for its four products, which range from 10 to 17 percent, sound respectable.

Still, in September, a new line of Tile devices will be released that will address the concerns of critics who have taken to Amazon to grumble, Farley says. He wouldn't elaborate, but look for Tiles with rechargeable batteries.

And future products sidestep the whole battery problem altogether. The company is building Tile technology into products, such as an update to the Bose SoundSport headphones and earbuds (which start at $149.99) that will enable owners to find them when they're lost. The headphones themselves, when promoted by the app, will make an audible ring.